May2012

May 2 Donghe - A front came through bringing rain (16ml in Xing Chang May2-3 - up to 180 ml on west coast)and lower temperatures. Centipede in the bedroom. Yikes. (DD) Get some chickens - saw one take one of those big ones on this week. From the way she went at it, she knew it was a dangerous thing, but apparently they must be absolutely delicious. Point of fact, the centipede got away, but only coz it crawled into a crevice)War wounds playing up.

May 3-4 Kaohsiung - Some torrential showers, clearing on the 4th with typical Kaoping smog, high humidity, with intermittent clouds and sun. May 3 was officially declared the 'Start of the Meiyu'. I am still not exactly sure what that's based on - would have seemed like meiyu for the last couple of weeks - it may have something to do with the first low that breaks through the high barrier to the north.

May 5 Donghe - Mist with daytime temps in the mid to high 20s

May 6 Donghe - Lots of seaweed washed up on local beaches with some ju3 mu4 mixed in. It's unusual to see this amount of seaweed. Temps in the mid to high 20s, cloudy and dry in Donghe but local showers. Rain in Chenggong. (DD) Smell of the sea driving on no.11 - first time i ever smelt it actually coz we don't get a lot of seaweed here. Could possibly be related to eddies forming in the black tide (Kiroshia current)

May 7 Donghe - Small amount of jumu on one Donghe beach, again mixed among the unusual seaweed. Relocated wood pile - was expecting to see a snake for sure at the bottom of it, but there weren't any.

May 8 Donghe - Going to be a hot one. Predicted highs to be 35 for the next couple of days. Hot morning. UPDATE: Only reached the low 30s. Saw large brown snake - lurking around fishpond until i startled it and slithered quickly into newly relocated woodpile. I assume it's a harmless ratsnake and remember seeing it in exactly the same area last year as well.

May 9 Donghe - Hot and muggy day, though highs only in the low 30s. Four live snake sightings over the last two days. One habu, something we passed too quickly to identify on the southern off ramp of the ZhongHua Rd. bridge into Taitung, and two unidentified, long big ones near here, most likely non-venomous. More info to come after research. Many deNESDIS Tropical Cyclone Productsad snakes around. Lightning seemingly all around after dark, distant thunder, but apart from a brief shower, no serious rain yet. Caught one of those big-assed centipedes and put him in some mi-jiu - plan to start making something out of them since there are so many around lately.

May 11 - 5 ml of drizzle over yesterday and today. (Big falls in Pingdong mountains) Moderate daytime dong bei ji fong - enough for windsurfers. Major hatching of flying ants in Xing Chang. Had a very small hatching a couple of weeks ago, but this was the big one - hitchcock horror movie level. Much later than last year for XC (June 29). Hatching is supposed to announce the flying fish season as well.

May 11 - Huge hatching of flying ants in Donghe as well, but we have had at least two nights in the last month of similar events. It's a bit unusual. Normally, these guys hatch for one or two nights then you don't see them again for a year. This is a bit odd.

May 12 Donghe - First cicadas heard. Torrential rain in Yilan (510mm+ so far). Humid with misty rain in Donghe. Flying ants still around; the frogs love them. (DD)Was driving on Su Hwa when storm hit around 2pm - just saw the beginning of it but already parts of the road were becoming rivers and saw several tyre-killer rocks on the road. When the water starts moving around and shaping up there those wending cliff edge roads are scenically scary all of a sudden. Esp when you know that road's dark history. In the end, they got 500+ml from Nanao to Suao. That's a very decent typhoon level, though it wasn't one, and not even a low pressure as such, just the cold front edge between one and a high. A meiyu type rain. The road was closed at 4pm, and not, initially, by the people manning the gates, but several impassable landslides around Nanao.

May 14 - Low 30s with strong sun and south winds in Donghe. It felt and looked very much like summer.

May 15 - The two highest highs for the day: 1 Dawu 36.3 05/15 12:00; 2 Taitung 35.7 05/15 14:30. Saw egrets flying south to roost in the evening(they usually fly north) - possible sign of rain coming? Southerly switched to light northerly breeze in the late afternoon.

May 16 - Isolated thunder and lightning storm restricted to the Dong He to Cheng Gong vicinity around 11am. 20-30ml sharp downpours there, but only 2ml in Xing Chang.

May 17 - High, gusty nne afternoon winds suddenly sprang up as a disintegrating low from the south merges with a stationary front from the west (which is expected to remain stationary right over Taiwan for the next 5-6 days). Nearing 250 mm of rain on southern tip of Taiwan. Spotty showers Taitung County. 1900 update: Raining hard in Donghe. Interesting to note that for much of the past few days, Taidong has been the hottest location in Taiwan, and now it's nearly the coolest, with only locations on the east coast north of Taidong being cooler. Large cell of moisture sitting south affecting us. Stationary at 1900.

May 18 - No rain in Jinzun all day until slight drizzle at sunset. Pleasant day, mostly cloudy with some sun. It didn't seem to get out of the high 20s. Cold front has dipped to the south of us - expected to swing back over us tomorrow - will be interesting to see where the wind comes from.

May 20 - Steady mei yu rain in Donghe until late afternoon. Tainan got nearly 300mm in the last 24 hours while Kaohsiung County got 200. Here we probably got in the 20-40 range (32.5 ml in XC). Gusty NE winds after dark and temp drop as the front slowly moves south.

Storm 94W developing SE of Guam, on a NW track. Pleasant morning in DH with NE winds, mostly cloudy, no rain as of 10:00.

May 23 - We got what I'm guessing was about 4-8mm of rain overnight. Not much but enough to soak the gardens well.

May 25 - Sky has had that look like it could rain 'at any minute' for the last few days but without managing to actually rain - in XC - in DH there have been nightly showers. Surprisingly cold with just a T-shirt on the scooter last night. Wind still blowing from north east (windsurfer strength a few days ago) - must be getting right to the end of that northerly component by now.

May 26 - What is probably one of the last 'cold' fronts is moving in from the west (mei yu fronts can persist until mid-june), but at present it is bringing moisture up from the south. Temperatures are predicted to drop off a degree or two. Light rain in DH. It's been cloudy all day, humid, but not terribly hot. No wind. Late evening and things are looking more unsettled - front moving across, thunder and lightning show down to the south, but only light patchy rain here.

May 27 - Despite 80% pop over last two days and the passing of a major cold front over the island, only 4.5ml recorded for the 2 days. A bit surprising coz a similar event last week produced falls of 30+ml in TD. However spectacular lightning shows out sea for the last two nights with mostly distant thunder. It would seem that for the mei yu front to have much effect here it needs the added component of a low pressure system to the south to feed in more moisture.

May 29 - Better falls today. As the pattern often seems to be, strong gusty north easterly blew up around 9, then dropped off, then the rain came. Steady rain since then till early afternoon. Only affecting east coast, with Ilan getting the highest falls (around 150ml). On radar you could see it creeping down the coast. Getting moisture from a low to the south east. Potential for bigger falls. CWB has issued an 'extremely heavy rain warning' for Taidong - which is kind of odd coz they only have the pop at 60%. Not a drop of rain has fallen in Zhiben yet (3pm), though clouds moved in around 10am. Brilliant, partly cloudy, breezy morning with great visibility until becoming cloudy. Tropical Disturbance 95W has formed east of the Philippines. This low (95W) seems to have been stationary for a couple of days now. It is organizing.

Lots of moisture around but no rain in Zhiben or Donghe. The organizing system east of the Philippines is now moving in a NW direction. Should be an interesting week to ten days ahead. Ended up with 198ml in XC - quite a drenching. Light to steady rain all day, then a brief lull and even some blue sky, then it turned very black around 5 pm and soon began pouring. Heavy rain until about 3 in the morning.